The antidote to ideologies

Snakeron has run out of scares, lies and dodgy doings. Be ready for anything

Cornered vipers can be very unpleasant. I met a pair 18 months ago while renovating the barn here. My only shield was a large spade, and the mass of venom dribbling down it following the encounter was astonishing.

David Cameron is a cornered viper. He botched last night’s debate, and so many registrations to vote were placed at the Government website immediately afterwards, it crashed. Crashed registration sites may simply be, of course, the new ‘banking glitch’: all one can say is that it seems highly likely the last minute voters were overwhelmingly Brexiteers. That hypothesis was quickly supported by a frantic Jeremy Corbyn calling for a deadline extension.

Cameron’s real problem is that a combination of bringing home a risible ‘deal’ from Brussels and then indulging in infantile scare tactics have finally tipped his credibility balance. Market research sources in the UK say the biggest single change in recent weeks has been the Prime Minister’s ‘character’ assessment in interviews. Lynton Crosby probably picked this up and then contributed to a Telegraph piece saying that the risks approach to condemning Brexit “is clearly working”. It wasn’t, and it isn’t.

What’s more, blaming Brexit for everything from Adam’s loss of innocence onwards has less and less evidence to support it. The US jobs report was enough to scare Yellen away from a rates rise, and only yesterday we saw this.

I’ve lost track of how many cuts in the growth outlook the WB and the IMF have made, but the global markets have been stuck in an almost flat mode for seven weeks.

Oil may have seen some price recovery, but I remain convinced that this was largely manipulation (the oil business could not have lived with permanently cheap crude) helped along by Chinese stockpiling. Demand for oil continues to reflect the reality of global slump:

You could say that, without artificially high prices, the US oil business would be frack broke hahahahaha, oh how we laughed. And then – as if to deliver the final coup de grace to the Bull’s neck – Chinese data yet again fell below expectations:

So there’s Dodgy Dave the venomous viper cornered by common sense and his own breathtaking sense of superiority. Nobody believes a thing he says outside the core Tory diehard denialists, Washington and Brussels think he’s a dud, and he has reached the point he did not want to get to: how to stop the inevitable happening by other than legal means.

Mr Cameron is not worried about breaking the law: he did it in the last election, he has lied to Parliament on many occasions, and he has used both EU and taxpayers’ money to try and get his way in this referendum. He is a serial liar, cheat, justice-perverter, tax-evader and law-breaker anyway….so none of what he must do now will worry him.

The only problem is, he doesn’t know what to do without being caught at it. He knows full well that he’s been rumbled…and that from here on in, everyone will be watching him like a hawk.

He also knows that he will no longer so easily enjoy the protection of his privileged position and his Party….or the immunity that comes from his international co-conspirators.

But finally, he knows he cannot say no. The order, “You will not lose” has come down. This time, however, there is a further condition: “Don’t get caught, because if you do, we don’t know anything, we are shocked, and you’re on your own.”

Now the viper must strike. Do not be surprised by anything.

Just as, indeed, you should not have been surprised by this:

Parisian friends assured me at the time that Jérome Kerviel had done what he did with the full knowledge of his employer Société Générale. The Court’s decision seems to support that. So then, logically we should see Inspecteur Maigret of the Sureté investigating further at SocGen, right?

39 thoughts on “Snakeron has run out of scares, lies and dodgy doings. Be ready for anything”

AEP wrote in the DT today that it’s not only Brexit, it’s the French as well now, and others who want out. Without some serious black flag event which shocks all of Europe the tide might well be turning, then of course it becomes Washington’s problem when all of Europe has had enough, one wonders how far Washington can go without over reaching itself…Germany’s problems are also starting to appear on the horizon…Wouldn’t that be a turn up for the books, as JW said a long while back, Germany will be the first to leave the Union?

You are almost certainly correct on this, JW. The question is not at all whether, but when – the timing for maximum effect must surely already have been have been given a great deal of expert consideration.

In 1924 that peerless newsmonger and fearless defender of democracy, Lord Rothermere, correctly judged four days as the appropriate period for exposing the depravity of the Labour party.

I cannot believe you have not done a piece on the amateur and lying OUT campaign. It’s almost as if they don’t want to win. As a Out Person myself, I’m disgusted with the lies when the is so much information that should be presented.

Such amateurishness suggests that they don’t really know why they want out, that they stoop to lying implies that they too are cornered vipers.

The biggest problem in this referendum is that few know what leaving the EU will mean, and few know what staying in will mean – yet for all the lack of facts, both parties hold their ground with venom!

If the British government did a better job of working in the EU, the problem might not have arisen in the first place. The problem here is that the intelligence agencies who oversee it all speak English, and can thus see that legislation is drawn up according to their views. Canny foreigners can slip in the odd phrase or two of legalise that allows their country to have its own way. Knowing that the language appears to be what their minders want…

I just saw a clip on Sky News of representative from Electoral Commission suggesting they were ‘planning’ for 80% turnout. Not sure of full implications on this but I heard somewhere that it would advantage Leave with very low or very high turnout which this obviously would be.

“it seems highly likely the last minute voters were overwhelmingly Brexiteers. That hypothesis was quickly supported by a frantic Jeremy Corbyn calling for a deadline extension.”

Why on earth would JC want to encourage and extend the voting registration for the Brexiters alone? You’re not suggesting that JC, rather than wanting the rights of us to be able to vote, is in fact expresing his secret desire to Brexit, despite his campaigning for Remain? Despite the links currently being forged with the left across the EU, especially in the expectation of the return of a left govt in Spain, and other EU countries?

Usually I respect your erudite (if slightly idiosyncratic) blogs, I don’t share your views, but I do find it entertaining, and your support for us WASPIS refreshing. But this is a little over-egging the pudding, I feel. JC is putting himself through a punishing campaign in support of Remain, with massive interest in the meetings held every day, sometimes twice a day, it’s just not being reported in the MSM.

At a meeting I attended, he actually said Labour had now given up on the MSM reporting the campaign, and were instead relying more on online and peer-to-peer to get the message out: to stay in. To fight to Brexiteers who are far-right opportunists seeking a mandate to take over the UK. Already the most right-wing govt on the EU, the Brexiteers and their plans for a new cabinet in their take-over in the event of an out vote show a far-far-right coup in the planning.

JW, you may be comfortable where you are, but please don’t wish this on the millions who are not as fortunate as yourself. Exit may be required at some point, but not now.

Have already voted to leave along with my good wife so that is 2 in the bag.
I was already convinced to go but yesterday my daughter sent me an article on micro beads which are killing fish and working up the food chain killing as they go. They should be banned forth with but as I said to her had we signed the TTIP agreements all the companies who are currently polluting the seas and the food chain would be able to sue all the governments who ban these products in their secret tribunal and be awarded huge sums in compensation.

The children have gone back to school, so time for a visit to the Barber shop.
Refreshing and encouraging to say the least.
Football wasn’t mentioned once, the weather briefly.
Europe, the vote, France, across all the chairs.
Didn’t feel like the UK at all.

Gemma
Always had doubts about Tfc, and whether he gets hacked or is just a troll.

You make one excellent point, which I wholeheartedly embrace: NOBODY knows the fiscal and economic consequences of leaving….although speaking for myself, as we have an EU trade deficit, it is very hard to see how we can suffer more than, say, Germany must from Brexit.

All that said, however, my reasons for wanting to leave have nothing whatever to do with trade, fiscality, economics, currencies or anything remotely connected to Mammon. In fact, I for one don’t care that much about ‘sovereignty’ so much as having control over our destiny as social citizens. If the EU reverted to the EEC and we could devolve more power down to communities, that too would suit me fine.

No, I want to leave the EU because
1. The goal is undemocratic federalism, and I regard that as the quintessence of evil
2. The bastards in charge show not an atom of an iota of willingness to reform or change, and only an idiot could fail to see that…..for example, most of the Labour Party
3. We have bastards in government here in the UK and another lot equally bad running Juncker’s EC and Schauble’s eurogroupe…a gathering, I might add, with less legality as a power than Smith after UDI or the bastards who replaced him: if we Brexit, Camerlot will fall and Brussels will be neutered
4. I have close links with Greece going back nearly 50 years and I despise the Brussels Bastards for what they have done to Hellas
5. I am a mutual capitalist communitarian, not a socialist or neoliberal Big SuperState bastard: as far as I’m concerned, the Referendum position taken by Conservatives and Labour is no better than the Nazi-Soviet pact
6. I believe in taking ALL the monied influence out of politics. I believe the only practical way to do that is via small communities. I deplore everything that globalism, multinational big business, multiculturalism, TTIP and bourse finance stand for. A vote to Remain is so obviously a vote for more of that – and the certain chaos that goes with it – I would only consider doing so if Bernie Sanders became the EU’s elected President and Viktor Orban its elected Prime Minister, having both been elected on the same ticket – the wholesale destruction of every dystopian federalist ideal everywhere, and an end to all colonialism – economic, cultural or otherwise.

Perhaps this might help you and others understand my philosophy, and why I left England three years ago.

Perhaps also I should change The Slog mantra from IABATO (It’s all bollocks and that’s official) to TABATO (They’re all Bastards and that’s Obvious).

We shall see. On verra. Que sera sera. Wir Werden sehen.

Yours

The Cosmopolitan Slog x

PS I think I shall post this thread as a blog – and see what others think…;-)

O/T, perhaps. Was the George Osborne created Office for Budget Responsibility on an early summer break, when the Whitehall machine, led by the Treasury, was spewing out forecasts for 2030 of economic collapse, without their clearance or comment? I think we should be told.

Florence
Thank you for your forcibly expressed and entirely valid views on a difficult subject.

The fact is, if you look at the latterly-converted JC’s behaviour BEFORE joining the self-styled élite, he was consistently critical of the EU’s obvious progression towards a SuperState neoliberal model under the conniving influence of illiberal lawbreakers like Draghi, Schauble, Dijesslebleom, Tusk, Rajoy, Venizelos et al. Ask Kate Hoey – this is her view entirely.

I think Jeremy wanted an extended registration deadline BECAUSE he suspected that the rush after Cameron’s debate débacle was based on almost everyone’s immediate desire to be rid of Cameron. I think that being a good man at heart, he’d like to have some time and opportunity to state his case and boost Remain registration. That is – I agree that the ‘debate’ hahaha has been massively perverted by soundbite drivel.

But Corbyn hasn’t debated on TV about Remain. Why not?

Far from being “comfortable” where I am Florence, as a Brit living as a registered eurozone resident, I stand to lose all my health & welfare benefit rights in the event of a vote for Brexit. But voting with one’s wallet has blighted politics since 1979 in the UK, and 1976 in the US.

This is about far more than that. See my response to Gemma for more detail.

As a survivor of the Scottish referendum , I would agree that Camoron is all of those things you say , then and now. The levels of scaremongering and propaganda are similar too. Is it still your view that the UK is “better together”.

Cameron came across as the PR bullshitter he is ,last night. It was squirmingly embarrassing and I could barely listen to his responses;answers they were not. They were sound bites and he got an easy run from the middle aged questioners,unlike Farage who had to deal with left wing ,diversity plants ,interrupting . The extension of the registering dead line ,due to it crashing,is very ominous. I cannot understand why so many would leave it to the last few hours to “register”. What changed? Electoral registers are usually fairly good and up to date ,unless of course a load of “new arrivals “decided to intervene. I disagree with John that you can assume its down to leave voters. Its equally possibly a stitch up from the PTB. As he says they will stop at nothing to fix this referendum.

the tactic used to tilt the scottish referendum was the postal votes.. where there was an unheard of 90% plus who voted!! i suspect postal votes will again defy belief with an unusually high number voting to remain..

I’m not in UK most of the time, and don’t see the TV showcases, but can imagine they have been set up to be anything but decisive.
Sounds like Dave has reached that difficult age, Cynthia, where he realises he is no longer on top of his game, has got lazy, and hasn’t the confidence any more to believe he is invincible. His strategy -or the strategy he has accepted- has been pretty rubbish. He didn’t try for concessions in Brussels, he didn’t even ask for a good PR from them about how much they love us. He didn’t try and sell any 2great movement” idea to us, or the bright future we could all have inside the bosom of Mutti Merkel. He didn’t say exports would boom, technology would be shared, talent would flood to UK. Just a second hand car was being sold.

If I was an outsider looking in, I would be saying Europe’s centrally-dictatorial vision is one no-one could wish for, and I would be trying to hang on to all power at a national and local level. Brexit should be a landslide, and if Dave had any courage, he would switch sides, go for Brexit, and then re-negotiate a new deal with Europe on the bits we like.

As we know, alas, Dave and just about everyone on the Westminster payroll, sold their courage for a place on the life-raft.
Little do they know a life-raft needs someone to come and rescue it.

I left Old Blighty six years ago, to come and live in the (expensive private healthcare) USA, to be with my American wife, whom I had married, some nine months previously. I really strongly want the UK to leave the EU, who are a bunch of un-elected, un-audited (effectively, since the auditors have refused to sign off on the EU for many years), jobs-for-the-boys, bureaucratic, neo-fascist bankers and gangsters. If the UK does not regain control of its borders, and strictly control immigration, then the health service, social services and education system will be completely overwhelmed. I cannot abide Donald Trump, but the UK needs to get him to construct a wall around the island ! I believe that, were I to return to the UK, I would have to wait to qualify for healthcare for six months or twelve months (having paid into the system for 35 years), whereas, some EU citizen, or illegal immigrant, who has contributed nothing, would receive immediate treatment ! This is the kind of nonsense situation which has come about through legislation (or diktat) from the EU. I dare say that a vote for Brexit might, at least in the short term, cause a drop in the pound against the dollar. This would affect my private pension from the UK, and probably, I would have to obtain a new ‘British’ passport, to replace the European one…but I could care less. I fear for my brother and family still living in the UK. For heaven’s sake UK voters, turn out and vote to Brexit !

Now when you say that “Perhaps this might help you and others understand my philosophy, and why I left England three years ago” – have you intentions to return to the UK should the referendum result of ‘Brexit’ be forthcoming (and its acceptance by the US government)?

I left the UK for other reasons, mainly that I was more comfortable in countries that still had a vestige of democracy. That is to say, a place like France where people still stand up to the government – but where the government has the option to listen to them – which in France’s case, it cannot because of the people pulling the strings in Brussels. The very people who like to make it look like Schäuble’s fault… which they can because they control the media…

What Britain needs – in or out – is a few politicians with guts.

If Westminster did what Westminster should, Brexit would be irrelevant. Brexit is irrelevant because Westminster doesn’t do as it should. The problem is Westminster, not Europe.

1. Only 5 – 6% of the ‘claimed’ cases of ‘microcephaly’ (which is what Zika is claimed to cause) have actually been confirmed as actual cases of microcephaly. I’ve worked in medical research and have known several consultant doctors and rarely if ever have I heard of official diagnoses only being 5% of suspected ones. It raises suspicions….
2. Of the actually ‘confirmed’ cases of ‘microcephaly’, only 1.5% of them saw mother and child having traces of Zika virus. So either Zika is the most amazing McCavity Cat of disease agents, or microcephaly is not caused by Zika virus. Unless of course the detection systems for Zika are such crap that they fail to pick up 95% of infected patients (in which case it’s far too soon to be drawing conclusions about anything).

The latter point can be most conveniently described as being ‘evidentially deficient’ by comparing it to an unsolved murder crime scene where our esteemed blog writer’s finger prints were found along with another 150 others. I am somewhat unconvinced that even our corruptible and deranged Crown Prosecution Service would be quite so foolish as to waste the taxpayers’ money trying to bring Mr John to court on the basis of forensics of that quality……

So you ask why is this Zika hoohah happening.

Well: the aim is create artificial need for World Bank programmes, which are always cover for CIA operatives getting on the ground and getting embedded somewhere or other. That’s why they wanted to spend £20bn on Ebola in West Africa when true Developing World medical experts were clear that £500m was enough in medical terms.

It is also America’s threats to Brazil about joining up with Russia and China to try and break the petrodollar world currency. You don’t go in gung ho bombing the shit out of Brazil after all. That’s reserved for places like Ukraine, Libya, Iraq et al. Brazil would be rather like Poland in 1939: the trigger for serious anti-US sanctions. So you use covert wars instead. Overthrow Dilma Rousseff and instal America’s man. Create a new agent of destruction called Zika Virus. Get the criminal liars at the BBC to parrot it all out without doing any checks whatsoever and if they refuse to, put the Murdoch war machine on full offensive, targeting the BBC for Auschwitz. That sort of thing.

We saw it all with Bird Flu. SARS. James Murdoch being an NED with GSK, which I’ve no doubt the IOC were delighted about. That sort of thing. GSK getting a govt contract to develop vaccines to SARS (or was it Bird Flu?) occurred just about when James Murdoch got his oversight role in an industry about which he knows nothing and has no educational qualifications in either. I think that sort of thing is usually called corruption, but we all know how hard it is to make corruption charges stick. Especially in holier-than-thou, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-your-mouth Britain…….

I wouldn’t bet that Cameron is cornered. Clegg, Salmond, Farage and Miliband, among others, made that mistake. Plus, he doesn’t have to be trusted, as he is basically advocating the status quo; the Leave side, on the other hand, do need to be trusted, and aren’t.

Gemma
Unfortunately most of our politicians have skeletons in the cupboards, not “guts”.
It’s amazing what leverage that gives those who really have the power in this, and I suspect other countries too.

@rtj
According to:- http://www.naturalnews.com/052943_Zika_virus_hoax_larvacide_chemical_GM_mosquitoes.html
” …..microcephaly is caused by a larvacide called “pyriproxyfen” (manufactured by a subsidiary of Monsanto) sprayed by the State for some 18 months to control mosquitos in the area where most sick persons live.
“As GM Watch reports, “Pyriproxyfen is a growth inhibitor of mosquito larvae, which alters the development process from larva to pupa to adult, thus generating malformations in developing mosquitoes and killing or disabling them.”

“……. a growth inhibitor of developing organisms? Does that raise any question marks with anyone when considering the under-developed cranial and neurological systems of the children being victimized in all this?””

With one fell swoop, you exonerate the Brazilian State from blame and you give another golden opportunity to the vaccine manufacturers.

Just to give you a flavour of European politics, you remember the Expenses scandal by the Daily Telegraph? Three MPs committed such frauds that even a British judge couldn’t get them off a sentence. The rest are “marked for life” in the way you suggest.

The Telegraaf in Amsterdam did a similar sting on the Staats Generaal in the Hague. Sadly, the Dutch MPs hadn’t done their homework. Three of them – that’s three out of 145 MPs – were found guilty of misrepresenting the truth. This, naturally was illegal, and still is, just as it is in the UK. But remember this is three out of 145, roughly equivalent to twelve British MPs out of the 600+ MPs. These were MPs guilty of an offence, just as 99% of them were in the UK.

One Dutch MP had claimed for a suit (not the rebuild of an entire mansion); another had claimed for some vaccinations for a foreign trip organized by the government (not a swimming pool). The third had claimed for a pair of sunglasses for another government trip.

Big stuff, don’t you agree? Three Dutch MPs, guilty of expenses fraud of the kind that wouldn’t lift a British investigator’s eyebrow.

I am quite sure that somebody in the know could use this kind of information to twist one or other of those Dutchmen’s arms and get them to vote this way or that…

… but that still leaves 142 who hadn’t committed any fraud at all.

This is the problem with Europe: politicians do what it says on the tin. They do their job and afterwards, they go home to their families.

If only it could be like that in Britain, where all the politicians are on the take!! (Barring a tiny, honest minority).

At risk of repeating like indigestion I believe that if you look around Europe with all its problems and mis-matches , the risk is staying in . Future is every bit as unquantifiable as remaining and unless you are walking around with rose tinted spectacles on the sure fire thing is , things are not going to remain the same, it’s not the predictable status quo. It’s seems it won’t be legally binding anyway so it could be a sham.

Gemma
Much as I always enjoy your inputs, it is uncanny how they tend to focus on the defence the Dutch and Germans. These are (if I recall correctly) the nationality of your genes, are they not?

As for ‘but that still leaves 142 who hadn’t committed any fraud at all’, the words “that we know of” are missing. Mr Dieselbung is Dutch, and Mr Schauble is German. The first is a genuinely nasty clown, the second a mad ball of bile.

My countrymen leave a great deal to be desired. So do yours….so do everyone’s.

John Ward : Your initial reply to Gemma is why I visit this blog and should be expanded to a post of it’s own.

There is more to life and more to Brexit than the munee and the Cameldung may just have underestimated what our folk value most. There may be hard times and a certain inconvenience but we can take it. As Gemma says we may well be then stuck with our own bunch of liars and bastards – but they will be our own. See Rudyard Kipling.

Following from other posts regarding immigration, in or out, if the global financial system fails and takes London with it (or vice versa) then our wonderful capitol of diversity will raidly decend into a third world hell hole – you only have to visit.

John, interesting and your clear annuciation of your views *@Gemma is a good summary of the outcome of being in the EU for Britain, Here in the antipodes I watching this debate with great interest (coming from Expat stock from dour northern parts) but on reflection looked at the referendum and decisions to join in 1974-1975, The politics was clear the UK as a place to make and do things was in strife and having to trade with a european hegemony with all the barriers that would arise would have finished of the fragile UK for a long time. Britain joining the common market now called the EU was a disaster for former colonies and members of the Commonwealth who at the time had primarily agricultural economies, joining the EU caused a great deal of anguish and pain and it took some time for Australia to work out that selling dirt was better than selling the products of animals that lived on it. Enough said, but whats different in the Englishman’s mind today?

In 1975 About 70% of British voters were for joining and it seemed to be fairly unanimous across counties and districts. Britain had a population of 56m. In 2016 forty years later Britain has a population of 65m. So either the joint was full or people stopped having sex because the population has stagnated in terms it has been below the natural rate of increase for decades, so the British voter has to be a lot older now so basically nearly most of those alive in 1975 will get to have another crack at what they think about being an Island state or just a province of Europe again. Question is do they remember the world as it really was in Britain in the 60’s and 70’s and think this that it is all better or worse? We all know that North Sea oil covered up for the fact that Britain was no longer the manufacturing power house of the industrial era and this mantle had passed to the Americans some years before and now that it is basically gone, what now? I guess the question becomes are the British really troubled by all this and EU politics? or are they like most other industrial nations sleepwalking into disaster?

@Waldgaenger
“our wonderful capitol of diversity will rapidly descend into a third world hell hole” – I could show you a number of areas in London that have for a long time resembled parts of the third world – resulting in significant ‘white flight’.

Mike in Oz – your population figures are generally suspected to be seriously under-estimated (some supermarkets suggesting the true figure is more like 80m) and do not include the millions of Brits who, like yourself, have emigrated.

As Waldgaenger says, they might be bastards, but they are British bastards. The problem here is that they’ve screwed up the British economy to feather their own nests and don’t give a sh*t about any other British people.

Because when you suggest “As for ‘but that still leaves 142 who hadn’t committed any fraud at all’, the words “that we know of” are missing.” Let’s put this the other way around, shall we? If the powers that twist the arms of the British politician to get their way in the UK could do that in the Netherlands and Germany, they damn well would!

The problem is that they can’t.

Your “that we know of” would have been headline news by now, if they’d had half a chance.

But you are right, Mr Ward, when you say “it is the EU’s disregard for law, democracy and liberal values.” The problem here is that this could be said of any one of the British MPs who are now under the thumb of the corporations because, well, you know the rest. It’s why Cameron keeps disregarding the things the British public need.

The EU is merely British (read “United States”) democracy writ large.

I know! They are British, and they are your policiticans… the problem is that they’re not interested in Britain!

The problem for the US minders who set up the European Union to impose a US style economy, is that Germany’s problems are not those of the US – which means that the EU is merely an imposition. The Germans have suffered such things before, and will again.

But it won’t deal with the real problems Germany has. Which can’t be understood because the British keep
thinking that the German politicians and businessmen have to be as corrupt as the British are…

…such thinking veils the reality.

The great thing for the Germans is that they can abide by these new impositions: which largely mean they have to pay swingeing taxes to the US banks via Greece, and to the US government by means of the fraudulent VW emissions scandal. The Germans have a new Führer who demands they pay with money rather than their lives.

None of this means that the Americans (through the EU) understand Europe’s problems, because the EU isn’t there to solve Europe’s problems: it’s there to solve American ones.

@alexei – possibly but the estimates are just that – the key point as an outsider and who has played close attention to Japan over the years, the similarities are striking so in a way Britain has the Japanese disease, its on the other end of the demographic curve, its economy has become sclerotic and they have for the past several decades pretended that playing with money and lots of it, was a substitute for declining internal demographics and rising costs for care, international competition and it went down the gurgler in the same way on real estate. Oz now has the same disease but it is masked by the rapidly growing population. I guess I don’t have a street feel but a lot of those numbers that may be at supermarket checkouts are not in the vote and those that are will have to be committed one way or the other. It is what one would call a wicked choice. Just the way looks from here and it gets marginal coverage, except when Boris is being a dick somewhere.

@Gemma – I agree with much of what you say but if as you assert “the EU isn’t there to solve Europes problems; it’s there to solve American ones”, why would we or the Germans even wish to remain.

“Mike H – I was around back in the seventies, back then the British people were not sold a Federal United States of Europe they thought they were joining a free trade area the EEC as it was then -The European Economic Community. The Federal goal was played down and effectively obscured. I do not blame the European Politicians for the fact that the British were duped – they were quite clear and explicit from the beginning. It was our own traitorous pols who were duplicitous about the end game and always have been.

We now actually have a rising demographic, driven mainly by immigration and the children of immigrants. This increases GDP but not neccessarily GDP per Capita which is what matters. It also brings with it it’s own problems as the immigrants and their children will age also. So is the solution to the ageing population yet more immigration and an increasing population ad infinitum. Given that England is the most over populated country in Europe already this solution is madness.